Promotion is a key factor to podcast success
After publishing your podcast episodes onto your podcast hosting platform and distributing these episodes onto Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc., what do you do?
Do you wait out for others to simply find and listen to your show? If you do, it is my responsibility to let you know that it’s not going to work out this way. Podcast marketing and promotion is needed for people to find your show. Before you turn away, we’re talking about free and organic ways to promote your show– not just paid ways!
Podcast promotion can come before and after an episode is uploaded and published.
Promotion done BEFORE an episode is publicly available aims to test out your audience enthusiasm, drive the hype to your episode, and have the initial boost for your episode.
Promotion done AFTER an episode is uploaded aims to drive interested podcast listeners to your episode.
In both cases, your SEO (searchability and visibility) is enhanced, which gives you a greater chance of passively getting discovered by listeners. Simply put, podcast promotion is an essential factor for audiences to find your show, and therefore, your podcast success.
Not all promotion work on every podcast
Not all tactics and strategies work for everybody.
There are a bunch of factors that affect whether or not a promotion and marketing strategy is for your podcast. The main factor is usually the type of podcast you’re running and what you’re trying to achieve. Do you have a true crime podcast, persona-lead podcast, professional development podcast, or something else?
The niche and communities of your target audience is also going to affect the type of podcast promotion strategy you choose to use.
For instance, if you’re a professional podcast that offers an online coaching business, free (or trial) online courses and materials is a good way to promote both your show and your business. Make sure they’re actually value-adding to listeners and not just a copycat of any other publicly-available materials.
Our survey shows that 1 out of 3 podcasters get stuck with podcast promotion. It’s time that we stop that cycle by addressing the problem at hand. Read the full report here.
Choose the right promotion strategy for your podcast
1. Know the nature of your show
Some questions to ask yourself when it comes to the nature of your show include:
- What is my show about?
- Who are my show’s target listeners?
- What are the actual listener geo-demographic for my show?
- What am I trying to achieve with my podcast?
- What are the scope, time, and budget I’m willing to put into my podcast?
2. Listen to other podcasts
Look into what other podcasts in the same niche and category are doing. Don’t just look at the top-performing shows. You also have to look into what others in the same comparable scale are doing. Some questions to ask yourself:
- Who are the other podcasts in the same space?
- What are similar podcasts doing to promote their shows?
- Are similar-scaled podcasts doing partnerships with businesses?
- How can I do the same promotions for my podcast?
3. Know your audience and niche
Apart from just knowing who your target audiences and niches are. You also have to look into what these type of audiences like and which strategies work on them. Knowing customer behavior can be a powerful asset for any business. Here are the questions to ask yourself:
- What podcasts are my target audiences listening to? Why?
- What marketing campaigns are my target audiences participating in?
- How are my niche listeners affected by similar podcasts’ promotion strategies?
- Which type of campaigns are getting most traction within the category or niche?
4. Ask your audience
Talking to your audience is a quick, efficient, and direct way to gather accurate feedback for your show. Make sure you’re clear, creative, and honest with what you’re searching for. Here are some questions you can ask:
- “Would you guys be interested in the launch of XX Product Line?”
- “What do you guys think is a reasonable price for XXX Merchandise?”
- “We’re conducting an interest survey to see how many of you guys would be interested in participating in a XXX event”
5. Experiment and measure results
It never harms to try out different tactics and strategies to see what works. But make sure to measure results in both quantitative and qualitative ways.
For instance, audience hype and excitement is great at creating buzz that may possibly attract other audiences to your show; however, there are times when all you get is just that: hype. Depending on your podcast goals, here are some objective quantifiable measures to see how your experiments are going:
- Increase in podcast downloads (% change)
- Numerical boost in subscriptions
- Movements in search ranking placements
- Additional sales for your podbusiness
- Membership increase for private podcast community
6. Gather feedback from listeners
Gathering feedback from listeners is a more passive, indirect approach compared to directly asking your audience in number 4. Here, you’re asking your listeners to leave their review and comments on your show as a whole, instead of directly asking them of their thoughts on your promotion strategies.
Through this method, you’re likely to gather much more honest, pure feedback.
7. Get creative with new strategies
If all fails, make your own strategy!
Podcast hosting designed for podcast promotion
- Cross-platform comment and voicemail tools to gather feedback and connect with audiences
- FLink, the all-in-one, trackable link on all your promotional posts
- Robust data and analytics to help you monitor results
Start your podcasting journey with easy-to-use podcast promotion tools!